As levels of violence in Afghanistan climb, there is a palpable and building sense of unease among troops surrounding one of the most confounding questions about how to wage the war: when and how lethal force should be used.
The relationship between civilian casualties and violent incidents in Afghanistan is characterized by three important facts:
(1) There is a positive relationship between civilian casualties and levels of future violence in an area and that relationship is much stronger for ISAF-caused civilian casualties.
(2) Civilian casualties affect the long-run trends in violence, not short-term fluctuations.
(3) The relationship between civilian casualties and violence does not appear to spill over district boundaries.
In sum, the empirical evidence from Afghanistan sheds light on the way in which insurgent groups operate. In particular, it appears that while in high population-density, urban conflicts (such as Iraq) information flows are a critical component to counterinsurgency operations, in more rural insurgencies the most salient factor is the availability of fighters. To the extent that counterinsurgent forces engage in unpopular and aggressive operations that generate specific local grievances, they are likely to facilitate increased recruitment and support for insurgent groups.
In responding to such a situation, military leaders face the task of balancing population protection with restrictions on their own operations. Minimizing counterinsurgents’ harm to civilians appears to minimize the recruiting potential of insurgent forces. The goal of reducing civilian casualties is not necessarily in conflict with the objective of protecting international forces’ lives.
- First, even if inadvertent civilian casualties caused by counterinsurgents do have a measurable impact on levels of insurgent violence, how big is that impact compared to other factors? This may be difficult to measure given the interplay between different drivers, and second- and third-order effects.
- Second, why (as the study suggests) is the effect of civilian casualties asymmetric in Afghanistan? In other words, why can the insurgents get away with it?
- Third, how do the different mechanisms and dynamics outlined by the authors regarding the dominant challenges for counterinsurgents relate to the work by other scholars on the collective action problems faced by both insurgents and incumbents?